Cultural Ecosystem of the Seediq's Traditional Weaving Techniques
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sustainability Article Cultural Ecosystem of the Seediq’s Traditional Weaving Techniques—A Comparison of the Learning Differences Between Urban and Indigenous Communities Shyh-Huei Hwang 1,* and Hsiu-Mei Huang 2 1 College of Design, National Yunlin University of Science & Technology, Yunlin 64002, Taiwan 2 Graduate School of Design, National Yunlin University of Science & Technology, Yunlin 64002, Taiwan; [email protected] * Correspondence: [email protected]; Tel.: +886-5-5342601 (ext. 6000) Received: 15 January 2019; Accepted: 4 March 2019; Published: 13 March 2019 Abstract: The Seediq tribe is one of Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples, and they have very traditional weaving techniques. Women of the Seediq weave clothes and quilts for their families as they believe that only women with good weaving skill can pass through the Rainbow Bridge and be reunited with ancestors after they die. However, due to changing society, there is little demand for weaving today, and the norms observed by their ancestors are gradually disappearing, resulting in the declining number of locals capable of weaving. The weaving techniques of these Indigenous people are on the verge of disappearing. Unfortunately, when the government took measures to preserve the techniques by registering Seta Bakan as the preserver of intangible cultural heritage, and launched training classes to save such techniques, no locals were initially interested in learning weaving. After non-Seediq people were allowed to participate in learning, the course attracted weaving lovers from all over the island. The course included five learning phases within four years, which were given in urban communities. In the fourth year, the weaving teacher was invited to carry out a course to teach in her Indigenous village. Both courses have the same teacher teaching the same techniques. However, the perceptions and feelings of learning vary among members of different cultural backgrounds. UNESCO has extended the protection of intangible cultural heritage from technical objects to the maintenance and inheritance of community, thus, this study focuses on the interaction and feeling of students during the weaving courses given in two communities, analyzes how the differences of feeling and cultural background influence the learning perceptions of the students of the two communities, and examines the significance and functions of rebuilding the cultural ecosystem for the sustainable inheritance of skills. The conclusion of this study is that urban communities learn weaving purposefully because they have no cultural or technical background, while the courses for indigenous communities feature the frequent recurrence of traditional “old value”. The different learning motivations, feelings, and perceptions of the two communities can be complementary and mutually supportive to each other. After exploring the cultural context, this study finds that the cultural ecosystem generated by indigenous weavers includes Gaya belief, Natural knowledge, Indigenous languages, Personal practice, Generational links, and Social interaction, which are strongly bound to each other. However, social changes can weaken or even break the cultural ecosystem; the learning courses of the two communities create opportunities for re-connection. Native tribes are the best field to build an ideal cultural ecosystem; while the urban communities play the role of an acupuncture massage stick that stimulates the ethnic consciousness and learning motivation of Indigenous peoples, which preserves and provides the techniques and external knowledge. Admittedly these two communities contribute to cultural inheritance, respectively. The analysis of this study provides an important reference for the feasible routes of carrying forward indigenous Sustainability 2019, 11, 1519; doi:10.3390/su11061519 www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability Sustainability 2019, 11, 1519 2 of 21 techniques on the brink of disappearing in the current society of cultural initiative, and provides the opportunity for reconnecting cultural ecosystem through technique acquisition. Keywords: Seediq’s weaving; interest community; inheritance of traditional techniques; cultural ecosystem 1. Background 1.1. Research Motives Taiwanese Indigenous, that live in remote mountainous areas, are culturally disadvantaged, as compared with the mainstream Han population (According to statistics, as of December 2018, Taiwan had a total population of 23 million, including 16 Indigenous peoples of 250,000). Therefore, the former is facing the problems of the rapid loss of their mother tongue and traditional techniques. Seediq women traditionally regard weaving as their duty, which not only serves the basic needs of their families, but is also for gifts, beliefs, disciplines, and honors. However, these needs and constraints have gradually disappeared due to changes in social patterns, and thus endanger the inheritance of traditional techniques. In 2015, the United Nations issued Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that are aimed at the problems faced by all countries and formulate 17 sustainable development goals and 169 follow-up indicators, as based on an active practice of equality and human rights [1]. Among them, culture can be said to be the heart of SDGs, and cultural heritage is also mentioned in the content, such as Target 11.4, which calls for strengthening efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage, and Target 4.7, which calls for education to promote a culture of peace and non-violence, the appreciation of cultural diversity, and culture’s contribution to sustainable development, etc. [2]. However, in terms of sustainable development, Taiwan’s traditional Indigenous techniques are facing difficulty in protection and safeguards. Aware of this crisis, the government launched a campaign to protect intangible cultural heritage, and registered Seta Bakan as preserver. Like other Seediq girls, Seta Bakan began to learn weaving from her grandmother in her childhood. At first she just passed weaving tools to her grandma and helped roll threads, but as she grew up, she started to learn weaving. Smart and hard-working, Seta Bakan acquired all weaving techniques from her grandmother, who was the best weaver in the tribe. As a result, Seta Bakan was registered as the preserver of traditional Seediq weaving by the government in 2012. In order to carry forward the techniques, the government assisted Seta Bakan in launching the technique training program. However, when the course for Seediq locals began in 2014, it was difficult to attract Indigenous people to learn traditional weaving due to it being a hard, slow, and complex process. This course was later opened in urban areas where non-Seediq people were allowed to take the course, and the wide participation of people all over the island interested in weaving gave rise to the four-year training program launched in the urban community, as mentioned in this paper. Four years later, Seta Bakan was invited to the Indigenous tribe to teach the Seediq people how to weave, and this course has lasted for two years in the indigenous tribal community mentioned in this paper. Helland [3] pointed out that the inherent link between craft, community, and place is native, while “traditional” craft places greater emphasis on time and reflects the collective memory of the community, which is passed from generation to generation and marks the origin of identity. According to UNESCO’s Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, as signed in 2003, the protection of intangible cultural heritage has shifted from the mere focus on technical objects to cultural living and community, which is the carrier of technical inheritance. Therefore, analysis of how communities influence the preservation of traditional techniques is conducive to understanding the key factors for the revival of Indigenous culture. One of the researchers in this study is an urban community trainee. On the basis of his long-term participatory observation, the researcher found that Sustainability 2019, 11, 1519 3 of 21 while the same technique is taught by the same teacher, different maternal and learning environments will cause learners to show different concerns, cultural meanings, and perceptions. The learning process in the two communities features highly dynamic cultural characteristics, and its significance and contribution to the protection of cultural heritage and cultural ecosystem also arouse the interest of researchers. 1.2. Research Purpose When people are worried about the rapid loss of traditional skills, they try to protect and conserve such cultural properties; however, this is difficult to maintain as the social life style has changed. How to adapt to the trend of the times and preserve traditional culture is an important issue. At present, UNESCO’s focus on cultural heritage has shifted from material objects to living culture, namely cultural continuity. To this end, a return to community is necessary. The engagement of community members in traditional weaving learning is the practice of “small heritage” that constructs part of the collective future. Compared with the authority launching movement of cultural heritage preservation, the indigenous effort can be a small and pragmatic force that deserves great attention in cultural heritage preservation [4]. The technical performance of Taiwan’s aborigines is based on the real life, beliefs, religions, social strata, and clan organizations [5]. Traditional Seediq